Fillies of the Apples
by The Orwellian Writer
Summary: Based on the story Children of the Corn. Apple Bloom and the other Cutie Mark Crusaders are preparing for Nightmare Night. For the first time in a long while, the harvest moon will come on the same night. They soon discover that Applejack and the rest of the Apple Family may actually be members of a murderous cult that wants to sacrifice them to He Who Walks Behind the Rows.
1. Chapter 1

Fillies of the Apples

Chapter 1

The Cutie Mark Crusaders, as they called themselves, had gathered out a very large sheet of paper and were scrawling many different shapes on it as they sat on the floor of their clubhouse, giggling to themselves.

"Can you even get a Cutie Mark for the best Nightmare Night Costume?" Apple Bloom inquired, although her question fell on deaf ears.

"Okay, so all I know is that is has to be so amazing you'll have to make up words to describe it!" Scootaloo yelled as she drew another figure on the sheet.

"The best costumes are the ones that are completely original. Something we've never gone as before for Nightmare Night. No vamponies or werewolves or monster invented by a mad scientist. The ones that revel in the fear of the unknown!" Sweetie Belle yelled dramatically, looking at the figures they had already drawn.

"So how are we going to do that?" Scootaloo asked.

"We could go by the library." Sweetie Belle suggested. "Twilight could have tons of books about monsters that nopony knows about that well."

"Yeah!" Scootaloo yelled, the excitement evident in her.

"We're sure to have the best costume by the time Great Uncle Applewood stops by Sweet Apple Acres in a couple of days." Apple Bloom said, smiling.

And they ran out of the clubhouse excitedly.

And as they walked out of the apple orchard, they stopped by Sweet Apple Acres to verify where they were going. When they got there, they found that Apple Bloom's sister Applejack was rather obsessively cleaning the room.

"Applejack, what's wrong?" Apple Bloom said as she watched her.

"Oh, Great Uncle Applewood is going to get here early. He'll be here tomorrow." Applejack said in a worried voice.

Apple Bloom watched as Applejack continued cleaning in a maniacal fashion. "It'll be fine Applejack. By the way, we're all headed over to the library to figure what we should be for Nightmare Night." Apple Bloom said.

"Alright. You be careful now." Applejack said, it having become a routine of them going out into Ponyville on a near daily basis that had convinced her that her sister and her friends were fully capable of taking care of themselves when it came to going into town.

"Thanks Applejack!" was all Apple Bloom yelled as they ran out the door smiling and giggling.

Applejack smiled after them, her eyes going dreamy.

The whole family was dreaming of the night to come. The first time in a long while where the harvest moon came the same night as Nightmare Night.

The three Cutie Mark Crusaders trotted through what looked like an ordinary sunny and happy day in Ponyville. The odd thing was, it didn't really feel like that. It seemed off. It was probably just the fact that Nightmare Night was only three days away. Yes, that was it. The season did bring out fear in all the scary movies and books they had been reading recently to prepare for the season.

Anyway, they burst through the door of the library. "Hey, Twilight!" Apple Bloom called out, taking it upon herself to do all the talking.

"Hello girls!" Twilight said rather absentmindedly, buried in a novel.

"We're looking into a new cuie mark idea." Scootaloo said coolly, deciding to ease into this for some inane reason.

"That's nice." Twilight said, having heard what they said but knowing that a new cutie mark idea took up just about every moment of the girls behind her free time, and she wouldn't let it take up hers.

"Do you know about any monster we could be? Something that nopony in Ponyville has ever been before?" Sweetie Belle asked in excitement.

Twilight looked up from her book. She turned and smiled to them. This was an area she really was excited about. "I certainly do." And she happily trotted over to the area of her bookshelves she had reserved for horror fiction. "If that's what you're looking for, you should look for it right here."

Immediately, the three fillies ran over and grabbed every single book from the section, piling it up onto their backs, and began the strenuous task of walking with them.

Twilight stared at the scene in shock. She shook her head and then sighed. "Well, good luck with that." She muttered.

The three Cutie Mark Crusaders piled all the books they had taken onto the floor, and quickly began to look through the section for something that was new to them.

"Another vampony novel…" Sweetie Belle said, tossing it behind her head.

Twilight gasped and ran to catch the book. She plucked it off the ground, glaring at the three fillies.

"Let's face it, a depressing number of these books are vampony novels. There are no more original ideas anymore!" Scootaloo yelled, tossing several more books behind her.

Twilight rushed around like a video game character to catch all of the books before they landed.

"These all have nothing we're looking for!" Apple Bloom said, eliminating all but a small handful of books. "They're either too common or too, well…common!"

"Isn't the same thin-" Twilight began before a book hit her on the head.

"Hmmmm… This one seems awesome in this book here-" Scootaloo began, skimming through the book. "But it can be anything, including a vampony or werewolf." And she rejected it too.

Twilight quickly caught it, and looked at the title of the book: It. She sighed and put it back too.

"Ooh!" Apple Bloom said. "Here's a short story collection. There are bound to be tons of ideas in here!"

And they began to thumb through it. As Twilight recuperated all her books, they read every single story in it. It was pretty frightening to them, but their rather stupid need for a cutie mark led them to forge on.

As Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo began to talk about which one of them they wanted to be, Apple Bloom walked over to inquire about one that interested her. "Twilight, what's 'He Who Walks Behind the Rows'?"

Twilight looked up. "Oh! I have a small folder of information about that legend!" And she walked over to go get it.

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo quickly shuffled over to listen to the tale, thinking they might really like it.

Twilight came back with a small manila envelope, and pulled out a few papers. She looked at them with worry. She had heard all about Scootaloo's reaction to the stories Rainbow Dash had told while they were camping. She sat down and began to read.

"On the other side of the Everfree Forest, there was a small town called Gatlin. Their main economy there was growing corn. But then their crops began to die off. To save the place, somepony from the town summoned a thing to the town to bring the crops back to life. He Who Walks Behind The Rows. And it did just that. It brought all the crops back to life. All it required in return was the town worshipped it. That entity became their God. They dressed like Earth ponies from the founding of Equestria. And they sacrificed all the Pegasi and unicorns to it. They tossed it into the cornfield, where it lived. They walked into the cornfield and tied their hooves to a cross with wire, ripped out their eyes, and stuffed their mouths with corn husks. And whenever the ponies failed to give it a sacrifice, it would lower the age they were allowed to be before they gave themselves up to the corn."

Twilight paused for a moment. She saw that the three fillies looked genuinely frightened at the story. Yet still, they ushered her to go on with it.

"Some ponies said that it would go to many town, developing similar yet different customs for each town that gave itself up to it. Eventually it would turn each town it went to into a ghost town. Gatlin was the last town that it was known to be in. Nopony really knows where it is now."

And she quickly stuffed the papers back into the folder.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders were actually shivering slightly. There were no jump scares in it, but it was pretty creepy to think about. "What did it look like?" Apple Bloom asked quietly.

"Well, it was described as being very big, a green color, and having red eyes the sixe of footballs. Ponies also said it smelled of corn husks. That's it really. That story and the papers in this folder are the only mention of it in any story in Equestria."

Apple Bloom looked rather afraid for a moment, but then smiled. "Girls, I think we have it!"

And at this, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle brightened up and ran out the door to get to their clubhouse.

They ran through the streets of Ponyville as quickly as they could. They had work to do.

As they did, they passed by Carousel Boutique, where they witnessed Sweetie Belle's sister Rarity attempting to put up Nightmare Night decorations on her house while still making it look pretty.

"Hey Rarity!" Sweetie Belle said in her overly chirpy voice.

"Oh, hello Sweetie Belle. I was just making the most lovely Nightmare Night decorations for my home." Rarity said, admiring her own work.

"It looks nice!" the three said together as they bounced off.

They passed by Sweet Apple Acres and ran off into the orchard. They went out deep until they reached their clubhouse. They turned over the sheet of paper they had laid out earlier and got to work. And with a coherent idea in mind, they had enough to work with that they were in there late into the night.

They hardly noticed the nearly full moon rising in the sky nearby. And they didn't notice at all the large red eye looking at them through the window for half an hour before it disappeared.

By the time the Sun rose as visible through the window and you could see the bags developing under their eyes, they more or less had it. They had planned a He Who Walks Behind the Rows costume for Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo would dress up as its seriously mentally disturbed disciples. Nopony in all of Ponyville would have anything like that as their costume.

It was then that they decided to go to sleep. They slept for the whole of two hours before a mental alarm clock went off in Apple Bloom's mind.

"Oh! Great Uncle Applewood gets here today!" Apple Bloom yelled, the full consequences coming to hit her. She darted out of the clubhouse.

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo burst awake and followed her.

They didn't notice as they ran through the orchard that some of the trees they past were free of blemishes or bumps, and they could not hear any animal sounds.

They arrived at Sweet Apple Acres (Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo decided to stay) and they joined Applejack, Big Macintosh and Granny Smith in greeting Applewood as he arrived.

"Where were you?" Applejack whispered angrily.

"We were up late last night." Apple Bloom said.

Applejack gave her a reprimanding look that said she would deal with her later.

It scared Apple Bloom pretty badly. Almost as much as that story she read.

And a chariot slowly pulled up in front of the house. A stallion with gray hair like Granny Smith's and a light red coat with yellow eyes stepped out of it.

"Hello y'all!" he said brightly.

"Hello Applewood." Granny Smith said happily.

"Hello Great Uncle Applewood." Apple Bloom, Applejack, and Big Macintosh said.

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo kept silent, but smiled nonetheless.

"I'd like to introduce my grand filly. He's the same age as Apple Bloom. His name is Isaac." Applewood said in introduction.

And a small filly stepped out. He had a light green coat and red hair. And he gave them a smile and stared at them through black eyes.

_Author's note: I've got the first chapter published, but this is sort of a late Halloween special. I've never read Children of the Corn, but this is based on the plot of that story._


	2. Chapter 2

Fillies of the Apples

Chapter 2

Isaac looked at the whole current population of Sweet Apple Acres, giving them a look that was both a smile and a very stern, militaristic sort of face. "Hello." And that voice was totally in the stern part of his demeanor. He began walking forwards into the house, still giving them that odd look.

Apple Bloom noticed something as he walked by her. "You don't have a cutie mark!" she yelled tactlessly, alerting her friends to this as well.

Isaac snapped his head to look at her. "Hello, Apple Bloom. Celestia has forsaken her light from you, I see. The harvest moon will come, and you will join the favor of her once again, as we all must."

Apple Bloom was absolutely bewildered at the (to her mind) totally nonsensical comment that Isaac, who had never met her before, had just made to her. Even more bewildering was that Applejack was nodding in agreement with him, giving her an irate look. And then she realized her whole family was giving that same nod.

"It's just that Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle and I have this club to help get blank flanks their cutie mark." Scootaloo chimed in.

"You don't deserve your rites. Your souls are what must be marked, and I have mine." And Isaac walked away.

To the one-track minds of the three Cutie Mark Crusaders, that made even less sense than the other thing he said.

"The Seer was correct. He said he that we must come to Ponyville. And he has confirmed that He wants Apple Bloom to join us this harvest Moon." Applewood said in a grim voice.

"Isaac is the Seer then. Thank you Applewood for bringing him to us so we can gain the continued favor of He Who Walks Behind The Rows." Granny Smith said in a wise voice.

You know, if the three fillies weren't too wrapped up in their cutie mark related conversation to hear any of this, they would have lived the next two days until Nightmare Night far more cautiously.

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"And so we offered Isaac to join the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and he doesn't even want a Cutie Mark. I thought everypony did!" Sweetie Belle complained sometime later.

"Sweetie Belle, within seconds of hearing the words 'no cutie mark' or some variation of that, you're asking somepony to be a Cutie Mark Crusader." Rarity said as she pinned up more decorations.

"Yeah, but he should want it! It's a beautiful thing to have!" Sweetie Belle yelled, certain she knew what she was talking about.

"Why is that? You get tied down to whatever you Cutie Mark is forever." Rarity said.

"Well…" Sweetie Belle began to think about this. "It's really important…" She answered weakly after a really long time of thinking.

"That's quite true." Rarity said, not thinking about it that much.

And so Sweetie Belle began to trot off to the one place she was planning to spend for the next two whole days.

After another twenty minute walk, she went through the orchard at Sweet Apple Acres and arrived at the Cutie Mark Crusaders clubhouse.

"Hey Sweetie Belle! Did you get all the fabrics from Carousel Boutique?" Scootaloo called from inside.

"Yep!" she called up as she walked up the ramp to get in to the clubhouse.

When she went in, she unrolled all the rolls of cloth she had gotten on the floor.

"Excellent." Scootaloo and Apple Bloom said as they got out some scissors and such to make the costumes.

"I don't know about that He Who Walks Behind The Rows costume for me." Apple Bloom said. "The description of what it looked like was too general. We don't really know what it's supposed to be."

"Maybe we'll be lucky and get it exactly right.

And with all the scissors and sewing machines, they began to make their costumes. They snipped out the outlines and sewed them together, and during what nearly became another all nighter, they made all the details of it. All the while they talked.

"So, I wonder why Great Uncle Applewood decided to come by the farm. Nopony really told me." Apple Bloom said.

"It's probably just a seasonal reunion. It's fall harvest time, so he could be here to help out with that. He seemed a lot less… well, old than Granny Smith." Scootaloo said, putting what little she knew about costume making into the fold.

"I guess it could just be a reunion. That would explain why he brought his grand filly along. Listen girls, we really shouldn't be worrying about Isaac. We don't really have to force what we want to do onto him. Maybe he's just the type that likes to do it all the traditional way." Apple Bloom said.

Before Scootaloo could insult this, a ding went off in Apple Bloom's mind. "Oh my gosh. Applejack said I had to come back before the sun set today. I'm almost late! Te sun is setting right now. Oh put it back, Princess Celestia, put it back!"

And then she realized what she was yelling was idiotic and dashed out the door to make it back to her home.

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo sighed. "We might as well get home too. She's the only one who really knows what she's doing in costume making."

And they walked out of the clubhouse in a more slow fashion as well.

Apple Bloom successfully beat the sunset in getting to her home, but she knew that she still qualified as being late.

And she most certainly was. When she walked in the door, Applejack was there, looking at her with an unhappy glare. "You're late again. Ah can't believe you're being late to get home when Great Uncle Applewood is here with us."

"Ah'm sorry, Applejack." Apple Bloom said.

"Well Applewood just told us that he and Isaac are coming to live here with us. Isaac might be in your room a while." Applejack said, not yelling but giving a very obvious air of displeasure and dislike toward Apple Bloom.

And when Apple Bloom picked it up, she was frightened. All of a sudden, Applejack frightened her. The simple fact was that Applejack was looking at her like she hated her, and she did not want to be hated by her own sister, whose personality had taken a drop into the negative side.

She suddenly began to think of her problems more. Namely, the part where Isaac was taking permanent residence in her room. She hadn't exchanged that many words with her Great Uncle Applewood, but Isaac frightened her nearly as much and Applejack's new demeanor. On pony eyes, black eyes just looked really creepy, and she wasn't interested in staring at them all day while he told her she was a Celestia forsaken mule that needed to be cleansed. And the way he talked about the methods of cleansing a pony did not sound even remotely appealing to her.

And Applejack continued to give her that glare as she sent her to her room. And that was where Isaac was right now.

And she slowly ascended up the stairs to go accept the full reality of her fully changed new home life. She couldn't wait for this.

And she walked into her room. She could distinctly see Isaac standing in it, and he was…

"Hey!" Apple Bloom yelled. "You're nailing plaques to my walls!"

Isaac was indeed nailing wooden planks to the walls and several other places. He turned to her, staring at her again with his disturbing looking black eyes. "They are the words of law given by Celestia. These serve to make sure we never forget them."

Okay, the amount of fear and anger Apple Bloom was feeling towards Isaac just rose up quite a bit.

She had the incredible urge to use the hammer to pull the plaques off and then toss it at Isaac just to see if he would run away (which he undoubtedly would not do.)

But she knew she couldn't. Applejack passed by the room and stressed to Apple Bloom that she could not remove those plaques no matter what.

It was then that Apple Bloom got the sickened feeling that Applejack actually agreed with what was written on the planks. That she actually wanted her to agree with them, but just wasn't showing it. That was a feeling that actually worried her quite a bit. But she didn't show that either. She just went along with it. There was still an hour until she went to bed, and then it was a full day until Nightmare Night. Applejack might get angry with her for missing out on spending time with Great Uncle Applewood and Isaac, but she would spend the entire day with her fellow Crusaders. Then she would spend the day after that, on Nightmare Night. She hoped dearly that afterword, Applejack being mean would have passed by. She might never get rid of Isaac, and he would almost certainly never stop being creepy, but she would get by. She had always known that bad conditions didn't just make you die instantaneously. Life went one, even if you just weren't expecting it to.

And then she spent the next hour attempting to make herself believe as she walked through the rooms of the house several times, avoiding the looks she was getting from members of her family like something important was going to happen soon. Very, very, soon. She drew back a bit. Time was fleeting, and she was soon in bed without even remembering going to bed.

"You will soon earn the favor of He Who Walks Behind The Rows." Isaac whispered to her as she began to go to sleep.

And all hope of going to sleep was then gone. All she could do for the rest of the night was stare at the ominous messages on the plaques and realizing whose favor these rules were really supposed to gain. It was the thing from the story in that book. It was the thing from that folder in the library. It was the thing she was going as for Nightmare Night in two days (essentially one day though). It was real, and it was here.

And then she got right out of bed and began running out of the house as fast as she could.

_Author's note: Okay, as of now, I actually have read Children of the Corn. The plot will delve into being more like it soon enough. Continue to review this story please._


	3. Chapter 3

Fillies of the Apples

Chapter 3

Apple Bloom was knocking on the door a very many times on the door of Carousel Boutique, where she knew Sweetie Belle was staying at the moment. But she was unable to rouse Rarity from her sleep to open the door. Then she remembered that she didn't want Rarity to wake up, she just wanted to see Sweetie Belle. So she began the endeavor of breaking into the house.

She knew that when Sweetie Belle was here, she would sleep in a guest room on the top floor. So she began to use the design of Carousel Boutique and the very elaborate Nightmare Night decorations hanging on it as footholds to climb up the building.

Luckily, the sheer number of things on the boutique to use as footholds made it relatively simple to make her way up. She used them all to maneuver around and up the boutique to make her way to Sweetie Belle's window.

And as she swiveled around for a while, she soon found she was looking into her window and could see her in there. Now there was just the small challenge of getting into it. If she allowed her front hooves to let go of what they were holding, she'd almost certainly lose her balance and fall to what would either be death or getting injured with Isaac telling her that her broken back had made her more Celestia forsaken. She shuddered at both thoughts, and so began to open up the window.

She would use one hoof at a time to slide it open (luckily for her, it wasn't locked) and when she felt she was falling, she would grab on again until she regained a sense on balance and knew she wasn't going to fall. And after doing this for a while, she had it all the way open.

She hoisted herself up and lifted herself through the window. The warmth of the inside of the room was a relief after climbing in the cold for maybe and hour. She quickly closed down the window. And so she began to wonder of how she was going to do this.

'_Hi Sweetie Belle! You know what we're going as for Nightmare Night? It's real and it's coming to get us!"_

It would sure put her in a good mood to wake up and hear that. She knew that Sweetie Belle wouldn't be happy that she had broken into her house, and Apple Bloom didn't think there was any proper way to wake her now.

So she just did it. She shook her awake and stood back.

Sweetie Belle yawned as she woke up, still blinking out of it. She obviously had no idea what time it was and hadn't seen Apple Bloom yet. She looked like she was just going to go back to sleep, and then she saw Apple Bloom standing right in her room.

And understandably, she began to scream.

Apple Bloom panicked and rushed forward, covering over her mouth. "Sweetie Belle! It's me! Apple Bloom!" she hissed at her.

Sweetie Belle stopped screamed as her head fell back in shock. Apple Bloom was relatively sure that she might have fainted. But this belief was squelched when she tried to pull her out of bed. Because that was when she snapped out of it and began to scream again, although not as loudly this time.

It took a couple minutes of the same thing happening multiple times before Sweetie Belle blinked some of the sleep out of her eyes and realized who was in her room.

"Apple Bloom?" she asked, shocked. "What are you doing here?"

"It's one of those urgent things that can't wait until morning." Apple Bloom answered, trying to pull her out of bed.

"What is it?" Sweetie Belle said, still 20-something% in sleep.

"I'll explain it to you. Just don't wake up Rarity!" Apple Bloom hissed at her, managing to get her out of bed.

Apple Bloom slowly walked out of the room, while Sweetie Belle sleepily hobbled after her.

They walked down the stairs and into the kitchen, taking care as they passed Rarity's door.

And they sat down at the table, where Sweetie Belle put her hooves on her chin and slumped down into her chair, still very low on energy. "What time is it anyway?"

"Ah'm not sure." Apple Bloom lied. She knew full well that it was 2:00 am in the morning, but Sweetie Belle wouldn't be happy about that.

"So what is this about?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"First let's find Scootaloo. Do you remember where she lives?" Apple Bloom asked.

Sweetie Belle was now completely awake. "I don't think we ever really remembered to ask with all the Crusading we were doing." She gasped.

"Oh right…" Apple Bloom said, rather guilty about this.

They stared at each other for a while. Then they slowly walked out the door to go on a crusade to find Scootaloo and wherever she lived at.

The streets of Ponyville were darkened and empty. Not a soul in sight. But they continued on, looking for anything that would give them a valid help in finding her around here. They headed for town hall. They weren't sure that you had to write down where you live on a census, but there might be something else.

Now, to their surprise, they found the mayor was still working there. Bt she was still in her office, so she didn't see where they were at as they walked as quietly as they could through yet another place they had broken into to get to the hall of records or whatever it was called. They'd never actually been in city hall before now, so they weren't actually sure.

Anyway, they found the whatever. It was a series of filing cabinets that had the record of every single one of the small number of ponies in Ponyville.

No instead of using common sense and going into the S section, they proceeded to go through every single one from the beginning. Well they were only 9 years old at the moment. Common sense wasn't one of their strong points at the moment.

Eventually they made it to the correct file and looked into it. They memorized what was on it before making their way out.

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"Sweetie Belle, what time is it?" Scootaloo asked in a very sleepy voice as they walked through Ponyville about one hour later.

"I don't know." Sweetie Belle said, and she wasn't lying about this one.

"So what's this thing that we need to talk about?" Scootaloo asked, yawning.

"Not sure. Apple Bloom is the one who wants to tell us. I think we need to go to the clubhouse." Sweetie Belle said.

Apple Bloom heard this quite clear. "NO!" she yelled, horrified. She knew that their clubhouse was in the orchard and the orchard was where it lived…

"Why not?" Scootaloo asked, obviously rather annoyed.

"We need to go somewhere different than that! I'll explain everything there!" Apple Bloom said, running back to Carousel Boutique.

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle looked at each other, not sure what to think, and then followed after her.

Apple Bloom went the way she went originally, hobbling up the walls to get to the window so she wouldn't ring the bell that rings when you open the door.

Her two friends watched this with widened eyes and somehow convinced themselves to go the same way. They hobbled up the wall and went through the window, which Apple Bloom had already opened.

When they were all in, Apple Bloom closed the window and still walked out of the room, continuing on her way, to which Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle followed.

And then Apple Bloom pulled on a cord and pulled down a stairway. These stairs led to Carousel Boutique's attic.

And even Sweetie Belle didn't know this place had an attic, so she had no idea how Apple Bloom knew it.

And they followed her up there. What they found in the attic was nothing. It had all been emptied out. They only thing there was a window. And moonlight didn't really provide the comfort that sunlight did, but there were no lights.

And so they huddled together, wondering why Apple Bloom had brought them here of all places.

And before they could ask anything, there was thunder and it began to rain. Apple Bloom looked out the window and remarked, "Looks like a bad one. It probably won't stop raining until tomorrow night."

And with that knowledge, they settled in.

"So what is this all about?" Scootaloo asked.

"It's real." Apple Bloom said.

"What?" Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle asked simultaneously.

"He Who Walks Behind The Rows is a very real thing." Apple Bloom said, expecting that to make sense.

"Okay. What does that mean?" Scootaloo asked, not getting it at all.

"Applejack told me that Isaac is going to live with us. She turned into a mean pony and hates me all of a sudden. She gets mad every time I'm near her." Apple Bloom began, looking very distraught at what she was saying.

"I don't see what that has to do with-" Scootaloo began to say.

Sweetie Belle shushed her, directing her to the sad look on Apple Bloom's face.

"And Isaac is insane. He claims I'm a sinner with a almost everything I do. I don't even know what that means. He started nailing a bunch of planks to the walls telling us what to do if we want to gain Celestia's favor. Applejack told me I couldn't take them down and looked like she actually agreed with the things they said." Apple Bloom said.

Scootaloo still saw no relation between this and what they had been called to hear at 3:00 in the morning, but she tried to listen to what Apple Bloom was saying.

"And Great Uncle Applewood and Granny Smith and Big Macintosh, it's like they're all getting the same attitude towards me. They all get all mad and won't talk to me anymore when I'm around. Only Isaac talks to me, and I'm not interesting in hearing any of the things he has to say to me. I really needed to leave the place."

Sweetie Belle couldn't make sense of it. She knew Applejack loved her sister and would never be mean to her. She knew that Isaac must have had something to do with it. There was something off about that filly.

"And then I went to bed. And I was almost asleep when he just told me that He Who Walks Behind The Rows is real. And then I woke up and realized that all those planks were supposed to gain his favor, not Celestia's. I knew that it was real, and it was right here in the apple orchard outside my home." Applejack said.

Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo looked at each other. Scootaloo sighed and looked at Apple Bloom. "Look, Apple Bloom." She said. "What if it's just that Isaac is crazy and he's been spreading his craziness around. That's probably it."

"But how would Isaac know about that thing? The only book it's in barely says anything about it, and the only other thing that'll tell you about it is in Ponyville and nowhere else! How would he know about He Who Walks Behind The Rows?" Apple Bloom asked.

And Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle considered this as well, and this time they came up with nothing. They didn't know the answer to this one, and Apple Bloom knew that.

And suddenly there was a bump downstairs.

This made the trio jump up.

More bumps emanated through the house.

These all did nothing but make them afraid.

The sound of hoofsteps.

It was then that they decided to stay up in the attic until they stopped.

But they didn't stop. They continued for a very long time. The sound of screaming was heard briefly, but then stopped. The hoofsteps trotted out of the house.

They no longer wanted to go down and see what had happened. They didn't know how they got to sleep after that, but they did, somhow.

And then they woke up. It was still raining then. But it was daylight. They would later learn it was 1:00 in the afternoon. And everything was silent.

So they left the attic. To their surprise, it was still silent down there as well. They walked to Rarity's room.

Empty.

"Rarity?" Sweetie Belle called.

And the three Cutie Mark Crusaders got a bit scared. But Rarity was Sweetie Belle's sister, so they stood back to allow her to look.

Sweetie Belle checked all the rooms on the top floor.

Empty.

"Rarity?"

She checked all the rooms on the bottom floor.

Empty.

"Rarity?"

It suddenly occurred to her that Rarity might be out. She calmed down a bit. No, Rarity would never ever go out in the rain! She ran out the door of Carousel Boutique. The bell that dinged above her seemed to be cruel in context.

"Rarity?" She called out into the streets. Much to her surprise, everypony was out in the rain.

"She's gone. They're gone." A pony told her. She didn't care who it was.

"What?" Sweetie Belle asked.

"Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy." The pony said. "They all disappeared last night. They're gone."


	4. Chapter 4

Fillies of the Apples

Chapter 4

Nightmare Night

Needless to say, Nightmare Night began in a rather dour mood. Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, all four of them were nowhere to be found in all of Ponyville. After a full day of searching, they had been able to figure that out. All four of them were gone from the entire town. Believe me, they searched every millimeter of the town (It was a small town, so it was easy) and they knew that they hadn't gone out of town. They were able to check for that too. They hadn't left town.

Now Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were rather depressed at ponies close to them disappearing, and Apple Bloom was too. She had been friends with all the ponies that had disappeared. Sweetie Belle was the only one of them crying, and they tried to comfort her (very unsuccessfully). It seemed like there was no link to them in Ponyville. They searched the places where they had lived before they disappeared, and there was hardly anything there to suggest that they had even lived there in the first place. The place had been cleared of all the things that truly left an imprint on the building.

So they had written Princess Celestia, and she had said she was coming to see what had happened to them all, it was that urgent to her.. She said she would be there in about four days. But Apple Bloom was not willing to wait that long. Now, most of the ponies in Ponyville thought that apple Bloom would take a good deal of comfort in the fact that her sister hadn't disappeared with the majority of her friends. But you might just know the important reason she didn't take the comfort in that situation.

She knew that if the four that had disappeared and they hadn't left town, there was only one place they could go, or be taken: Sweet Apple Acres. And she knew that they had been taken. And she could think of a reason why they had been taken there. This reason tied into the fact that Pinkie Pie was the only one of Applejack's friends that hadn't been taken. And the reason worried her. Because she knew it was because Pinkie Pie was an Earth pony like Applejack, while Rarity and Twilight Sparkle were unicorns and Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were pegasi. The folder had said that in the town of Gatlin where He Who Walks Behind The Rows had lived before, that thing had demanded those who worshipped it to sacrifice all the pegasi and unicorn to it.

And then she remembered something Granny Smith had told her a week ago that she hadn't even thought about since: Great Uncle Applewood, along with her, had originally lived in the town of Gatlin. Granny Smith and the rest of her family left it behind, while her brother Applewood stayed behind with his wife to continue their family line in Gatlin.

And that just tore it for Apple Bloom. She knew for certain that what she had thought about Applejack was correct. What she had thought about Great Uncle Applewood and Isaac was correct completely. Her whole family had become members of a murderous cult that was going to sacrifice her friends to a demonic entity living in their apple orchard, following a religion that Applewood had brought with him to Ponyville. He Who Walks Behind The Rows had taken Ponyville as the next city that it would make its own. And she didn't care if anypony believed her about it. She was going to do something about it now.

And she stood up and began walking to Sweet Apple Acres. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo realized which direction she was walking in and were able to guess what she was doing in said endeavor. They knew that she believed what she had said yesterday, and what she was going to do about it. Call that a sort of guess that was transmitted through the bond of a really strong yet rather confusing friendship. Oh well, most of them are anyway. But they knew when they looked at her, they knew completely.

And they began to run towards her. They quickly grabbed her and held her back. "Hey!" was all Apple Bloom yelled, knowing they were getting in the way of something very important. They dragged her backwards. They weren't completely convinced about what Apple Bloom had told her before, but they knew she intended to do it without them, which they were not going to let happen. They would go with her if she was really genuinely serious about all this, which she was. But first, they had to drag her back and talk to her before she did it.

So they dragged her back into Carousel Boutique. Although it almost felt ghostly to Sweetie Belle after Rarity disappeared, they stayed there. They looked at Apple Bloom.

"What in tarnation do you think you're doing?" Apple Bloom asked.

"We know where you're going, and we're no going to let you do it alone." Sweetie Belle said.

"We don't entirely believe what you were saying, but we want to help you anyways." Scootaloo said.

Apple Bloom hadn't even considered the possibility of her friends coming with her, but it made sense now that she thought about it. She wasn't worried about them being hurt, because she knew that they could probably handle this together. She sighed. "Okay, then."

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were just a bit surprised at that (They were expecting it to be a lot harder than that to convince her) but they nodded and began to trek out of the boutique for their most dangerous crusade yet.

And as it would happen, almost certainly, if you consider all the danger of the task, it would be the very last they would do. But they wouldn't even die on it. That wasn't going to happen to them today. But there are things that are even worse than that to happen to you, just so you know.

66666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666 666666666666666

And that's exactly what they did. They walked up to Apple Bloom's home at Sweet  
Apple Acres and opened the door. But what they found inside was another case of an empty house. That is, everypony had left the place. All there was in the house were the plaques hanging from the wall.

"Gee, you weren't kidding about it…" Scootaloo said, looking at all the rules that were set by the plaques. It seemed to her that she had broken nearly every rule on the plaques throughout the house. That was either exhilarating or rather frightening. She wasn't sure which.

And they found nopony. The house was empty and the Apple family that lived her weren't here. Every room on every floor, nopony there. It was calming. Or it might have been ominous. In reality, it wasn't either of them. They just couldn't feel anything on their minds when they thought to the subject of the emptiness of the house. They looked around the rooms, and they saw that if they were here, they would be somewhere outside the house. And the only thing that was outside the house were the plentiful apple orchards. So that's where they were then. They decided that they had to be in the apple orchard.

So they walked out of the house. And almost instantly they were grabbed and knocked out. That was an original plan of kidnapping them. They were dragged off.

And then they woke up. They hadn't been out for very long. They looked around to find they were right in the middle of the apple orchard they were going to. They were in a large clearing in the middle of the orchard.

And they were surrounded by ponies. Earth ponies dressed in archaic clothing that had been out of date for nearly a thousand years. And it was all the Apple family from her home. There was Big Macintosh, Granny Smith, Great Uncle Applewood, Applejack, and there he was, where you would expect him to be in a sort of way. Isaac, leading them all.

It was only 2 hours to night on Nightmare Night, and they had been caught. And who actually knew what was going to happen to them now.

And Isaac raised one of his hooves. All of them sat down on the grass. The Cutie Mark Crusaders all stared in fear as they were forced to sit down as well. Then Isaac began to speak.

"There is the Celestia that sits upon the throne, and then there is the true Celestia, the true God that we must follow. He Who Walks Behind The Rows. It gives us its lessons through me forever and always, and it always reminds us why we must follow them and we must always remind it why we will continue to follow it. We give it sacrifices of those who will not believe and make our crucifixes to ward off the evil in the world. And it tells us what we must do if we fail it. And it tells us that it wants the Earth ponies of this city to be its new followers. And it tells us that the beginning of this city's conversion will begin with the harvest moon tonight. It tells me that the one it wants to begin the conversion is Apple Bloom."

The Cutie Mark Crusaders stared in horror, Apple Bloom most especially. They knew that it only wanted Earth ponies, and Apple Bloom would be turned into these wackos while Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were killed. And none of them wanted any of that. They didn't want it to happen. And Apple Bloom thought quickly. She knew that they weren't getting out of this, but she could make it less horrible for the three of them.

"Ah'll do it." Apple Bloom said.

Isaac seemed incapable of smiling, but he seemed satisfied at this.

"If you don't kill Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo, but do it to them too so they'll still be alive." Apple Bloom said frantically.

And Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo stared at her in shock. They never had enough time to think over which of the two alternatives was worse than the other.

Isaac thought about this. "Very well." He stated.

There was no more time to think about it after that. They were grabbed and they were forced into similar clothes to what the Apples were all wearing. The fact that they were all incredible stronger than the three made it so they couldn't even attempt to fight. Applejack grabbed them all single handedly and pulled them into the orchard. She led them deep into it and then dropped them. She left them in a daze on the dirt and left them behind.

They sat up. "What was that?" Scootaloo asked angrily.

"I…I didn't want you to die." Apple Bloom said.

"Well what are we going to do?" Scootaloo asked.

"I don't know. But we do have each other." Sweetie Belle said.

And they all huddled together as uninviting sounds emanated behind the trees that surrounded them completely.

They began the pointless endeavor of making their way to their clubhouse.

All the growling sounds around them ceased. It made them vaguely wish they would come back to let them know there was something there.

And then Sweetie Belle dropped to her knees (or whatever they were) and began groaning.

And Scootaloo and Apple Bloom nearly did when they saw it.

Tied to the trees around their clubhouse were Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy. It was like it said in the folder. Their eyes had been ripped out and their mouths had been stuffed with apple cores that were rotting.

They fell to ground and began weeping. Apple Bloom was weeping at what her sister had become and what she had done to her friends.

They didn't notice when all the rows of the trees around them closed up. They did notice when some huge green thing with red eyes the size of footballs jumped out at them.

They started to scream. But they did not scream long.

Some time later, a bloated harvest moon appeared in the sky.

Sometime after the cult finished hanging the bodies of Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, the cult had another meeting in the clearing. Apple Bloom was among them. Her eyes had turned a more darkened color. He Who Walks Behind The Rows had eaten her soul.

"He Who Walks Behind The Rows is not pleased. He is not pleased that we failed to keep Apple Bloom unaware of its presence before her day of conversion. As such, he demands the sacrifice of our two eldest members before the city is converted."

Applewood and Granny Smith stood up. "I obey the word of Celestia." They said. And they walked into the apple orchard and were swallowed up.

In the days that followed, Ponyville became under the possession of the thing in the orchard. And it stayed that way until like Gatlin, like every other town it had come to, it became a ghost town. And as it all fell to it, the orchard itself seemed to shake in its approval.

It was well pleased.


End file.
